Wednesday, September 23, 2009

More Baby Sweaters and Etsy

Well, I've finished another baby sweater. This one is based on the Organic Guernsey by Fawn Pea. I've made it from wool yarn (Brunswick Germantown Worsted) that was gifted to me by a member of my church. I've researched it and it must be quite old. The mill, Brunswick Mills in Pickens, South Carolina, is long defunct. The yarn itself is in excellent condition and is springy and wooly in a pleasant way. It has flecks of green in it that don't show up too well in this photo. In keeping with the age of the wool, I've used buttons I purchased from the vintage button booth at the NJ Sheep Breeders Festival.
Here's a shot of the entire sweater.

So, you ask, what am I going to do with all of these baby sweaters? I no longer have a baby in the family small enough to wear any of them. The answer is I've opened an etsy shop. For those of you not in the knitting/handmade items world, etsy is a web site created to allow people to sell handmade and vintage items. You can see the site here: www.etsy.com and you can see my shop here: www.adoptionmswknits.etsy.com. In the meantime, six of the sweaters have been taken by a fellow knitter to sell at the craft fair to be held Thursday at her place of employment. That's tomorrow.

Since many these sweaters were made using copyrighted patterns, some of which explicitly forbade the commercial use of the pattern or the finished object, I will be donating any proceeds from their sale to The First Unitarian Society of Plainfield.

Selling items on etsy not only requires knitting skills. I'm going to have to work on my photography skills as well. Taking a good picture is really important to allow buyers to see the quality of the work. It will be a good experience for me as I really haven't mastered much more than "point and shoot" with our latest camera, a Nikon D40 SLR.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Another Project Finished


Baby's First Jacket, made from Regia Sock Yarn bought at Knit and Knibble in Tampa, FL. I got the buttons at The Custom Shop in Kennebunk, ME. I'm working on a second version of this pattern using Classic Elite Alpaca Sock.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Busy, busy, busy

I've been working on a number of baby items to use up stash. I took lots of yarn on vacation with me and started one project after another. I've finished a few and am continuing to work on others. It's been very gratifying.

The first completed sweater was my version of Fawn Pea's Super Natural Stripes. Mine is not natural in color or in yarn. It's three shades of Caron Simply Soft. I finished it while we were in the Adirondacks and donated it to the auction for the Adirondack Scholarship Foundation. I'm told the final bid was $25. I hope someone's baby enjoys it.


Next I used more Caron Simply Soft (can you tell I have a lot of it in my stash?) to make my third version of Reynolds Cardigan for Baby. This is a lovely little pattern, knit from the bottom up all in one piece so there is very little seaming. I love the lacy detail around the yoke.


I made another soaker out of left over yarn from the Oriental Lily Dress. I love the color combination. I plan to use it as a sample at the 15th Annual NJ Sheep and Fiber Festival on September 12 and 13. A knitting friend has reserved a booth and invited other group members to display their work. I've put together a portfolio of soaker and skirty photos and will see if there is any demand for custom work.

This is another Fawn Pea pattern called Mossy Jacket. I've made it with Lockhart yarn and accented it with Cascade Ecological Wool. This was another easy knit, from the top down. It's a heavier weight than the other sweaters and would make a nice gift for a baby to wear in the winter.

This one is from the pattern, Kindred Knits Yoked Cardi. I made some modifications including knitting the button band right into the jacket rather than adding it later and turned the finished jacket in side out. I decided the handpainted yarn looked too busy with the ribs on the right side. I also shortened the sleeves for two reasons. I was concerned I would run out of yarn and in the six month size I think the sleeves are too wide the way the pattern is written. I think it would look very cute over a little long sleeve turtleneck, don't you?

I've got three others in process. Two are knit in sock yarn which makes for slower going and the third is Fawn Pea's Organic Guernsey made in very old worsted wool that was gifted to me by a fellow member of FUSP. I'll post photos of them as soon as they are finished.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

It's been a while

Barn with the original sign at the entrance to Little Lyford Pond Camps

It's been nearly a month since I last posted. We've been traveling since August 19 and some of the places we've stayed have had no internet access. At other spots we've been so busy I haven't had a chance to post.

Right now we're at Ferry Beach, a UU camp on the coast of Maine. Dick is a vacationer and I'm taking a course on Aging and Saging. Mostly we're discussing the inevitability of death and how to prepare for it. It sounds depressing, but it's actually been very interesting. There are about 20 of us in the discussion group and the leader, a retired UU minister, is very well informed and skilled at group facilitation. The course is scheduled for the mornings and the afternoons are free to spend at the beach or relax on the porch. I've been doing a lot of knitting both during the discussions and in the afternoons. I haven't finished any projects but I've made a lot of progress on some baby sweaters. I'll be posting photos in the next day or so.

Last week we were at Little Lyford Pond Camps, a relatively new AMC property about 15 miles north of Greenville, ME, in the 100 mile wilderness near the Appalachian Trail. It's a former fishing and hunting camp deep in on logging company property.

Our cabin, Red Quill, was one of the newest on the property. We were told it had been a falling down shed that was carefully rehabbed by the AMC carpenter. It was furnished with two beds, a table and chairs, a small sink with cold water, propane lamps for reading and a wood stove that proved very useful when the temperature dropped precipitously over night.

Breakfast and dinner were served family style in the dining room. After breakfast each day the staff set out a buffet of lunch fixings which we used to prepare trail lunches. Each day Dick and I went on a hike and then spent the afternoon reading and relaxing in the sunshine or on the screened porch near the camp library. Although we did not use them, the camp provides canoes on all of the nearby ponds. Guests can hike or mountain bike to a pond and then take a canoe trip.


The first few days of our travels were spent at Poko-Moonshine Camp in the Adirondacks of New York State. We had a mini reunion there. Chuck, Sara, their four children and Jackie joined us. Counselors provided activities for the children and there was plenty for the adults to do as well. Chuck and Molly climbed four mountains to earn Poko patches. Carl, Becca and Katie rode horses. Dick and Molly took a mountain bike ride. There were also opportunities for swimming, boating, archery and arts and crafts. I'm hoping a family reunion at Poko will be a yearly event and that next year Chris and Becky will join us with the twins. Joshua, Raquel and Twigg would be most welcome as well.